Inbox Insider: Testing can make e-mail more relevant

Relevancy in e-mail is a popular catch phrase, but there is a reason why. Sending relevant e-mail makes it more likely that a consumer will respond to it and more likely that a marketer will succeed.

One of the best ways to create relevancy in e-mail is through a good testing program. Last week at DMNews, we hosted a webcast on the topic. In it, Brian Whalley, director of community at OurStage; Susan Cordts, president/CEO of Adaptive Technologies Inc.; and Cathi O'Sullivan, director of marketing programs at Lyris, talked about their testing strategies and how they measured the tests.

Then this week, e-Dialog announced its new e-mail testing tool, which lets marketers test creative to small segments of a list to help shape the final mailing. Whether testing a subject line, an image or an offer, sending out a test gives marketers good feedback on how a consumer is likely to respond, from their own list.

I am happy to hear all this talk in the air about testing, because it should be a basic building block for all e-mail marketing. If one image is stronger than another in a test e-mail, a marketer can use the more popular one to the whole list and hopefully see a more engaged consumer and therefore a better return on investment.

Paying attention to the consumer and how they respond is one of the best tools that marketers have to understand their audience and make their messaging more relevant.